Answer:
Family Development
The family is central to HDFS. The family is a primary context in which individual socialization and development take place. It is, perhaps, the principal medium through which culture, society, and social change affect the individual. And it is a social fact in itself that feeds back and can accelerate or mitigate changes occurring in the broader society. Graduate study at Penn State offers students a unique opportunity to develop the substantive, methodological, and theoretical skills necessary to study human families.
Individual Development: Childhood
A variety of core concerns underlie child development research conducted in HDFS. Much of the research is motivated by questions about individual differences in children’s health and psychological development as well as he origins and consequences of such variation. Another core issue is the way children change over time and the degree to which earlier developmental patterns and experiences can predict future growth and development. Because the department has a multidisciplinary orientation, faculty are interested not only in biological and experiential causes and consequences, but also in working at multiple levels of analysis. Researchers take into account biology, genetics, psychophysiology, and health, as well as sociocultural factors, environment, and moment-to-moment interactions in the family and beyond. They study the broader settings in which parents and children develop, including day care and the workplace, and the historical and societal context in which the child, the family, and these settings themselves are embedded.
Individual Development: Adolescence
Adolescent Development faculty in HDFS pursue programs of research that span this developmental period, from the transition into adolescence through emerging adulthood. Their work cuts across all areas of the department, including family relationships, prevention, and methodology, and utilizes a range of methods, including surveys, diaries, interviews, and observations. Examples of current research projects include: Community-based violence prevention in adolescents; Heavy alcohol use among college students; Gender, ethnicity, and sexual behavior among college students; Links between parenting practice and adolescent dieting and eating problems; The development of sexual orientation; Family relationships and adolescent gender socialization.
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